Rights: All rights belong to Akira Toriyama, Toyotarou and Toei Animation

This is based on the manga cannon, so there may be some discrepancies with the anime.

WARNINGS: This story is very, very dark, with a large amount of violence, gore, and sexual references, including references to non-consensual sex, and to a certain extent, scenes. It has been given the highest rating for a reason – you have been warned.

After speaking with Bulma in the rubble of the gravity chamber, he had immediately left in search of a barren wasteland in order to train. The ceaseless crawl of human expansion had civilised some of his usual haunts, while the others either held a namekian, who he did not want to admit his failures to, or else held no interest for him. This time he was headed for the arid landscape of the south pole, the largest desert on the planet, with only icy slopes and penguins for company.

They were rather good looking creatures, with plenty of meat on them for a midday meal. He wondered idly what they tasted like. Probably chicken. They were birds, after all, despite that they swam like fish in those nature documentaries Dr Brief liked to watch.

Vegeta dropped down onto the packed snow, picking a small valley with no occupants except for him. He would only be harming other animals for the sake of sustenance, not for sport or by accident. And he figured, after the debacle with his usual training equipment, there was going to be one of those.

The power within him had astonished him as he lost control of it, sky-rocketing past the peak of his old body and smashing through the reinforced metal container.

It was terribly embarrassing to lose control like that. His inability to master his power would need to be rectified as soon as possible. Who knew when another nemesis would emerge or return to threaten the Earth, and he couldn't afford to accidentally destroy his own home. That would be worse than shameful. That would be devastating, even if he could travel to New Namek to resurrect everyone with the Dragon Balls. Because it would still have happened. He would still be responsible for yet more destruction.

Vegeta didn't want to be the cause of more catastrophe, not with his own memories and those of the First One haunting his every moment, asleep or awake. They would pop up at the most inopportune times, causing him to act up and make his family suspicious. He just wanted everything to go back to normal, but he had to admit to himself that wouldn't be happening any time soon.

He wasn't even feeling the cold like he used to, having left without changing and finding to his astonishment that it didn't matter. But he supposed the First One traversed the depths of space often, had spread his debauchery in various environments, in blistering heat and glacial cold alike. The First One was more than simply a powerful body. And he was indeed powerful. Having amazed Vegeta with his might when he had first assumed the vessel, his strength had grown an incomprehensible amount as he recovered from starvation. The power he now possessed, still limited by a convalescing body, was mind-blowing.

It was the kind of power Vegeta had strove for all of his life. The strength he had quested for, had destroyed himself for, had given up everything he had ever cared about for.

He should have been ecstatic. But he wasn't.

Because it wasn't about the destination, it was the journey. And there had been no journey to attain this power, apart from most disgracefully losing a battle and being murdered, the only trials he would be facing would be how to control it, and he didn't think that counted.

How could he say he had surpassed Kakarot, finally and completely, when he had merely taken a short-cut, cheated? How could he hold his head up if he ever managed to reach Shindakan again?

Bracing himself, Vegeta attempted to power up a notch. Just a notch. But yet again he failed to judge correctly, splitting the ice sheet beneath him and sending him tumbling into the frigid water. Instinctively he flew out, bringing his ki around him to dry and warm him, and creating a blast radius of several metres.

So much power. But it was useless if he couldn't control it. He wasn't about to take the risk of entering battle like this, it was a recipe for disaster.

And so he tried again, nearby, lighting up the sky with his power as he again called it out, little by little.

Another crater formed on the icy plains.

And another, and another, as Vegeta refused to give up on commanding his new strength.

Hovering before his destination, Vegeta felt a hint of trepidation run through him as he contemplated his decision. When Bulma had first raised the idea he had considered a few options from his days as a soldier, and had been eliminating them as a list until a glint had caught his eye. The sun reflecting off the microwave.

The sun.

His mind had immediately been made up. This star which powered the solar system he currently called home would be ideal, with immense heat and pressure sure to challenge even the great First One himself.

Probably.

...

Possibly.

And he could pace himself, going down towards the core in levels, practicing using his ki to protect his clothing, even though he had been prepared to kiss goodbye to this set. It wasn't as if his wife had created this one for him – no, that fine piece of cloth had been melded onto a scorched husk then discharged into space. The clothes he was currently wearing were a result of his own magic. Saiyans did not possess magic like the Namekians, and could not under normal circumstances manage such a feat, but the First One was an exception, possessing that very power which Vegeta was certain he would be employing again when he had finished.

Yes, he would be training within a star until Trunks contacted him for lunch, having vetoed the packed lunch idea. That would be incinerated easily.

He would be training…inside the sun.

Taking a deep breath of created oxygen to fortify himself, Vegeta prepared to enter the furnace, reassuring himself that he had the power, he definitely had the power.

And even if he didn't, he was immortal and would eventually recover, even if he would never hear the end of it from Bulma. He doubted he would be escaping the clutches of her curiosity over the whole incident on Frieza Planet 95 in any case. What was another unexplained disappearance?

Was she going to work it out? He had seen the weighted looks sent his way, the discerning expressions, had noticed the way she kept coming at him with more questions, trying to trip him up in her search for clues.

He wasn't sure what he would do if she did. She had proven that she was disgusted by his past – how much worse would her revulsion be to realise what his past self had done, worse than anything Vegeta had considered in his time as a child soldier? Would she turn him out? If not for the repugnant acts the body had performed, then for breaking his promise to her, to always return, to be retrievable if he couldn't guarantee that he wouldn't die.

His body, the body which had made love to her and conceived her children, which had married her, was a burned husk lost in the vacuum of space. Could she forgive him for that oversight? For his failure? She had always done so before, but Vegeta knew it was only a matter of time before the straws added up to fracture the spine of the dromedary, so to speak. He didn't understand why she had not already cast him aside, since he kept on being inadequate to the task, no matter what eventuated.

How could she stand being related to such a disappointment?

Clenching his fists, Vegeta braced himself, and plunged into the sun.

He wasn't going to disappoint her again, he was going to regain control, and pleasure her like a proper human husband did.

Jarrah was good practice, giving him the opportunity to work out his power on a real opponent, gradually managing to tone down the force of his punches and kicks as she dodged and weaved, using the capabilities of ultra instinct to combat his repressed speed. He let her get a few blows in, needing to keep up appearances for the sake of the watching Merus (although maybe Whis had told him, anyway), feigning pain as she struck him. He weaved around her, impressed by her speed, and wondering at his own ability, which easily matched it without the power of ultra instinct. It would be even more of a risk to learn that technique in this body, as the First One's primal urges were far greater, and that despicable creature had given in to them time and time again, never even attempting to control the inclination towards slaughter and even towards promiscuity, something which had been bred out of the saiyans during one period of servitude or another. Vegeta was extremely glad that he at least had never acted in such an uncouth fashion. But the atrocities these hands had committed…

He didn't like to think on them.

And he wasn't about to take another life with this criminal body.

"You tiring yet, kid?" Jarrah smirked, falling for his simulation of pain and injury. Which was ridiculous, he realised with a stroke of inspiration, because he could heal himself. Beating her back with a sudden blow, he retreated, pretending to heal himself, much to her consternation.

"No one told me you could do that!" she complained, launching herself at him once more, "I guess I'll have to keep it up and not give you time out for a break. If I wear you down you won't have the power to heal yourself."

"This is true," he acknowledged, "But 'if' is the correct word. You already used much of your energy facing Kakarot."

"Who?"

"...'Goku', a name I despise since his saiyan moniker is one which commands respect among my people. Or, at least, it once did. The point is, you will tire."

"You'll tire first!" she yelled, sweeping Vegeta's legs out from under him, a move he used to grasp tightly to her arms and, using the momentum and his flying ability, throw her into the dirt.

Gosh, there were a lot of plants on this planet. And whoever had named it had the same sense of humour as those Vikings on Earth with their 'Greenland'. He was glad he was the one on top, pinning her as he sent a powered ki blast to her face.

He congratulated himself as the shot merely rendered her unconscious, rather than incinerating her or separating head from body.

He had passed yet another hurdle on his path to controlling his nefarious body.

Said nefarious body relaxed under a stream of soothing, warm water as Vegeta took a shower, scrubbing away the grime and plant matter he had accumulated. Looking in the mirror, Vegeta had been horrified that Merus had allowed him, a crown prince of some repute (even if it wasn't all good repute), to appear before the Galactic King, and in public in a general sense, looking like a walking garbage heap. The very thought made him redder than the hot spray could, as he ducked his head, unable to look at the hideous reflection anymore.

Lathering the soap, Vegeta considered the other part of the events which was bothering and dare he say embarrassing him. The conversation with Kakarot. He had been so open with the other saiyan, more so than he had ever been before, at a time when he was otherwise being very cagey, even with such important people as his wife. It was ludicrous that he would be so candid with him when he had been putting off his life partner at every turn. But, then again, he had been sharing his book with her, which exposed a lot about him, and he was and previously had revealed some aspects of his past with her.

But still.

He was keeping some major things from her now, and it seemed a double standard to be so frank with Kakarot under circumstances of secrecy regarding Bulma. But he had needed to. It was essential that Kakarot understand the mental factors which had destroyed him, which had led to the sacrifice of the things and the people he cared about for the sake of power. He didn't want to lose Kakarot down that path; had never considered it possible until now. Kakarot loved fighting 'strong guys'; he was attracted like a magnet to those more powerful than him. It was Vegeta that was always brushed aside like the rubbish he was, never catching Kakarot's attention because he just wasn't great enough. Part of Vegeta thought it would be poetic justice for Kakarot to finally feel a little of the emotions which had rocked him: the feelings of inferiority, of eternal failure, of insignificance when Kakarot would not give him the time of day in favour of seeking out new opponents, leaving Vegeta in the dust. He had never been accepted by Kakarot as a worthy rival, as someone to take seriously, and how it had rankled him, for years and years and years tearing at his heart even beyond the time when he let it all go in an episode of blind rage. It was right that Kakarot felt something akin to that agony, that despair, that terrible assault to his pride, even though Vegeta had never considered the other saiyan might even possess such a thing.

But still, he hadn't been able to convince himself to leave Kakarot to his own devices. He hadn't been able to watch another person sink into the depression which had eventually claimed his life, in more ways than one.

Nevertheless, he shouldn't have revealed so much to him – surely he could have achieved the same result with less words, with less admissions.

It was done now, though. And Kakarot probably wouldn't understand the depths he had exposed in any case. He certainly wouldn't tell people, wouldn't consider it important or potentially Earth-shattering, and may have even forgotten everything by now.

Everything would be fine. But he just couldn't help the raw feeling which enveloped him, reminding him of what he had said, and what he had nearly said.

He and Kakarot had been close, he supposed, in a way. Kakarot had been his Ikfend, a saiyan word which meant a combination of partner ('in crime', one might say, not in bed), wingman, sibling, friend and rival. But he had not been Kakarot's in turn. Kakarot viewed him with the same affection that he displayed in relation to everyone, even his own family. People were either friends, or strangers to him. He cared more for friends, but they didn't mean the same thing to him as family did to Vegeta. As being an Ikfend meant. Kakarot had no idea how important he was to Vegeta, no idea how much his regard was sought, how much Vegeta craved his simple acknowledgement. But that was probably for the better.

Vegeta was going to be taking his life in a new direction, now.

Vegeta was enjoying the taste of his Bulma as much as any generally asexual, but not aromantic, being could when it happened. Suddenly, when he opened his eyes for a brief moment, just to find the clasps of her clothing, he had not seen her. No, the beautiful visage of his wife was replaced by another, a woman whose name was unknown to him, that he didn't bother to find out even as he had devoured her.

Sexually.

Then physically, licking his lips as he savoured her blood.

One of the First One's victims.

Nausea erupted in his throat as the sensation and taste of blood filled his mouth, driving him away from the being, Bulma, he knew logically. But he did not see her, only the mutilated body clinging to life, cursing him with the last dregs of her strength.

He fled, slamming the bathroom door behind him, wishing not for the first time that it had a lock, yet knowing that such a thing would never stop his scientific engineer of a wife in any case. Thankful that his stomach was far more recovered, he knew he wasn't, despite the nausea, about to expel any bodily fluid, and therefore dropped down onto his behind instead of leaning over the sink or the toilet in a more undignified position. The stance he took, head between his legs as he breathed heavily, trying to dispel the haunting image, was disgraceful enough.

Through the haze and lingering taste of blood he could hear his wife calling to him, hear her opening the door against his wishes, but he could make no move or sound of protest. Yet.

Why was it that he kept capitulating like this, easy prey to the demons of his mind?

Why couldn't he just get a grip?

North City, a large metropolis and population centre several hours ahead of his home-'town' and an area where Vegeta had never set foot in before. But he had decided that this place would become a frequent part of his days, as he hovered over the skyscrapers below. Humans, looking like ants in his usual vision, went about their daily routine as he observed. Dawn had already shed the first rays of sunlight, and the people were stirring, early 'birds' already on their way to work.

Humans.

He had never really understood them. Their emotions, their ambitions, their thoughts and even sometimes their words. They were a strange bunch, surviving in the far reaches of space, weaker than any other sentient creature he had encountered. How had they managed to preserve their existence before the likes of their namekian guardian and Kakarot had arrived? Was this planet really so far removed from the rest of the universe that it had only come to the attention of nefarious sorts in more recent years? He knew it was backwater, but the idea that such feeble creatures could survive was against all odds.

Once he had considered it unfair, ludicrous even that these people had endured while his own, so much greater, had perished. Apart from Bulma, and her sometimes absent-minded father, they weren't even that intelligent. Certainly not anything to rival the greater minds of the universe, who lived through the application of their intellect rather than strength. The humans were nothing. And yet, they were still here, in spite of their weakness. There were only two of their kind worth paying attention to in terms of raw power – Krillen, who had far surpassed anything he thought a pure-blood human capable of, and Teinshinhan, whose strange abilities belied his lesser strength.

And Vegeta had only heard of three humans with laudable brains. He had married one, was the son-in-law of one, and had witnessed the other's death at the feet of his own creations.

It was odd how these things worked out.

It surprised him, though, how his compatriots emphasised altruism while withholding beneficial things from the populace. Sensu beans, dragon balls, healing abilities. All of these things had been denied to the human race unless they were acquaintances of a rather reclusive bunch of fighters (and Bulma, who was by no means reclusive, but wasn't really interested in normal Earthly affairs). That was about to change, though. Vegeta was going to be introducing a wild card into the lives of the humans, opening their eyes to the possibilities of magic and the mystical.

He hoped the doctors and the city as a whole could maintain a lid on it, but he was under no illusions about the possibility of his fame.

Which was why he was disguised.

Hair bundled up in an enormous turban, Vegeta looked like a desert-dwelling religious figure in a fine linen robe and yellow embroidery. Only Bulma would be able to place the garment, which he had ordered and then worn on the night before their marriage, in accordance to his customs. The sleeves and hem were decorated with saiyan symbols for life, truth, partnership (because there had been no word for 'love') and fidelity. The latter was an addition for the royal family only, other bonded saiyans tending to drift apart after a few years, given the race's polygamous characteristics when it came to procreation and even marriage, a rare rite aside from the monarchy in later saiyan society.

No human would recognise what these symbols meant, but they did serve as an excellent part of his masquerade, making him appear wise, noble, and cultured. Certainly he would seem to be from a far-off land, which was his aim here. He didn't want to be tripped up on Earth customs; not global, as he had discovered, which may be the case if he had pretended to be local. Plus, he did look like a religious figure, a cleric or priest of some sort. This wasn't exactly a lie, since church and state had not been separate for the saiyans, and the monarchy had been high-ranking religious figures in addition to their secular duties. Although not initially at the top of the religious hierarchy, Vegeta was now, and it would only add to the credibility of his disguise. He could truthfully say he was the leader of some obscure sect.

He hoped they wouldn't try to investigate any further than that. If they did, they wouldn't find anything on Earth to match with his claims, but they had hosted aliens in the past, if they even remembered any of their extra-terrestrial invasions. These people tended to move on rather quickly from the unexplained or unusual.

Such odd creatures.

Vegeta folded his arms resolutely over his body, keeping his hands away from his decorated face. He hoped Bulma wouldn't mind him using her make-up, but he thought she wouldn't want to be associated with a supposed miracle-worker whom most would try to debunk as a fraud. Consequentially, Vegeta had spent half the night arriving on his final design, with black eyeshadow and harsh eye-liner to darken his brow, black lipstick that his wife had bought as a novelty but never worn, and red lip liner used to draw tattoo-like renditions of the royal crest on his cheeks.

He had wanted to include a scar, but with no idea how to recreate such a thing, was forced to use only the lip-liner decorations. The First One wasn't advanced in the technique of transformation, had in fact given up on it after only a few attempts seeing as he didn't see the need for it. Vegeta had managed to resemble himself only through intimate knowledge of his form, both in appearance and through living inside it. He could not make something he wasn't used to having present.

And he wasn't about to consult Puar or Oolong for advice.

A sudden movement in his peripheral drew his eyes in time to spot a car swerve off the road, hitting a power pole too far distant for a sound to reach Vegeta. Luckily, the vehicle did not combust, but the front end was severely dented, pole creating a deep concave structure in the bonnet.

Vegeta approached at speed, landing momentarily before the wreck, senses peering out as his eyes searched.

Single occupant, driver in the front seat with their head down on the steering wheel. Unconscious, so he wasn't picking up any energy from them as he raised his palm towards the figure. A second later the man inside jerked upright, staring straight at Vegeta through the shattered memorial of a windscreen.

"H-huh?" he mumbled, eyes staring wildly about him as Vegeta leapt towards the door.

It was too early in the morning for a crowd, but a few people had gathered and were standing around, watching the scene like a bunch of ducks after bread crumbs, some with their phones out, taking pictures or filming.

Vegeta ignored them, intent on rescuing the victim who by now was screaming about how he was trapped, which of course he was, given the damage to his vehicle. But that was easily rectified, Vegeta tearing apart the metal and freeing the man from his prison, to stammered gratitude. The man tumbled onto the sidewalk, breathing heavily as he stared up at Vegeta, body still shaking from the experience.

"W—what are you?"

Vegeta hadn't given the rescue a moment's thought, had simply ploughed ahead without realising that ordinary humans could not vivisect a car. He was only supposed to possess strange healing powers, like a miraculous monk of some sort, not superhuman strength.

Oh well.

"I am the Paltjeh," Vegeta replied in a sombre tone, trying to sound more mysterious than he actually was. It was technically the truth, he was a paltjeh, a mostly ceremonial position in the saiyan church held by the king or heir, and a coronation was not needed to authorise the title's adoption.

There were whispers behind him at his declaration, and the healed man simply gawped at him like a stranded goldfish. But a moment later the whir of a hovering craft, at a lower pitch than the swift model Bulma favoured, pulled his attention to the road. There was a vehicle, looking quite different to Bulma's, seeing as it had an opaque encased section on the back, and flashing lights on the top. Writing on the side named it as an 'ambulance'. He recognised the uniforms of the people who rushed out, medical people, probably paramedics arriving on the scene, like on that news program he sometimes watched before a gaming session. He drew back to allow them access to the man.

"Seems to be in shock," one woman commented, heading back towards their transport for some piece of medical paraphernalia. Another man was asking the victim what had happened, where he was hurt, surprised when he said that he was not injured.

"Probably not registering any pain through the adrenalin," he remarked.

Vegeta watched in silence, the surrounding crowd still balking at him rather than the crash victim or the vehicle, but he paid them no mind.

"Just appeared out of thin air," one was saying to another, writing something on their phone.

Vegeta refrained from correcting them – i.e. that he had merely travelled too fast for the human eye to comprehend. Instead he considered what he had begun. The bystanders were certain to spread the story far and wide, at least regarding his strength if not his healing powers, which would have been more difficult to observe given the nature of the crash and the position of the vehicle's occupant. It was only a matter of time before he came to the attention of the authorities and the metropolis at large, perhaps even the world, if he was unlucky.

The idea of fame should not have bothered Vegeta as much as it did. He had been born prince and heir to a vast empire of billions. He had been exposed as a royal, held aloft to the public and exhibited at events and festivals to the cheering of millions. He had even composed a speech and presented it to an immense crowd prior to entering Frieza's service at the tender age of five. Never before, in all his exploits on human television sets, even his connection to the world at large to beg their assistance against Buu, had he felt so nervous at the attention. Perhaps it was because this was not the kind of interest he was raised for. True, a king was usually considered a hero by the masses, but this was different.

This, he didn't want people to know about.

But he knew his wishes would not be respected in that regard.

All he could do was maintain his anonymity, hoping the fighters never recognised him, and hoping no one ever connected the 'superhero hoax', as they were bound to see it, to his wife and her company.

Maybe he ought to have purchased a fake beard.

"Where have you been?" Wilhelm asked, not accusatory, as Vegeta materialised before him and his patient, an unfortunate child who had fallen from a balcony.

"I was facing the wrong way," Vegeta admitted, healing the little girl momentarily.

She was only a year older than Bra, by the looks of things. With an adorable dress and baubles in her piggies. A miniscule pair of shoes on her similarly miniscule feet.

And to see her, unconscious and limp in Wilhelm's arms, had hurt Vegeta in a way he never thought the suffering of others could. Suffering which he hadn't caused, that is.

"Facing the wrong…" Wilhelm began, giving the now tottering girl and pat on her tiny head, "You mean you come because you see these problems?"

"Yes."

"So you're not omniscient, then?"

"No." Vegeta might had added an 'of course not!', but such an ejaculation didn't fit with his charade.

"You know," Wilhelm answered, "before you go, I want to give you something. If you're just relying on sight, then you may as well have this."

The paramedic presented a curious Vegeta with a small, rectangular device.

"It's my old caller," he explained, "It tells me where there's been a call out. It's touch-screen, and the controls are fairly self-explanatory."

Or they would be to a human familiar with technology, Vegeta thought, taking the proffered item and investigating it by feel and sight.

"We're getting a newer and more difficult to use model, of course, but this will still receive messaging until I de-commission it. Top button on the side is the on-off switch, the one below that is the volume. The alarm is my favourite song, 'Dark side of the moon'."

Vegeta was baffled in more ways than one as he stared at the man. Not only had he never heard of such a song, but-

"I thought this planet did not possess a moon."

"Oh, it disappeared. And then reappeared. And then disappeared again. It's a great mystery. Wait, what do you mean, this planet?"

Wilhelm bolted upright as he gawked, the little girl investigating an appealing rock by his feet.

"Are you an—"

"I'm leaving now," Vegeta informed him, eyes on the device, which showed a map of the metropolis, as he turned away.

"Hey, wait! Do you want to go for a drink or something? After my shift?"

Bulma's words came back to him, encouraging him to make more connections, and he considered the proposition for a moment, before dismissing it.

"You are a good man, and I would not mind spending more time with you. But not in such company, in such a public place."

"Oh, you saw the report, huh?"

"Yes, I did. I was hoping you would not disclose the details of my acts."

"You never said not to!"

"I realise that."

"Nonetheless, if you won't come for drinks in a public setting, how about my place?"

"I—"

Suddenly a few strange notes sounded, and a red dot appeared, pulsating, on the screen.

"I must go," Vegeta informed his new 'friend', before vanishing into the morning without giving an answer. It would leave him with some time to think on it.

The scene was a nightmare, ripped straight from the morbid imagination of a human more versed in such episodes. Vegeta himself could never have envisioned it as he slowed to a halt before the wreck. Of course, he had certainly seen accidents and mangled vehicles, but these were often more delicate than their occupants. It was not so for humans.

From what he could gather, a truck had crossed onto the wrong side of the road, ploughing into a vehicle travelling in the opposite direction. The car looked like a giant had stomped on it, and he immediately wondered if any vulnerable human could have survived such a disaster. The front of the truck, a vehicle supposedly incredibly strong, had been bent inwards, bull-bar looking like one of Mr Squiggle's creations. And speaking of Trunks, the source of Vegeta's knowledge on the subject, he could see a small child being pulled from the wreckage, not by paramedics, who had yet to arrive, but by witnesses who were pouring out onto the highway to catch a glimpse of the tragedy, or else help in any way they could.

Humans were naturally charitable creatures, an incredibly strange phenomenon in Vegeta's understanding of survival of the fittest. Yet, he had developed similar tendencies of late.

Vegeta's first instinct was to tend to the child, a small body wrecked and bent, covered in blood and motionless on the road. Dropping down and startling the living daylights from the rescuers, Vegeta concentrated his ki, channelling it into the stricken form, lying so sickeningly on the ground.

The appearance of the child should not have affected him, given how used he was to seeing mutilated corpses of all kinds. But he was a father now, and proud of it. This was different, and he was seeing everything with fresh eyes. If his children had not taken after their paternal side in terms of raw power, something not guaranteed at first with only one other data point when Trunks was conceived, they could have been just as fragile. They could have been a gruesome picture of blood and devastation in the middle of the road in one of Bulma's frequent trips. She was such a reckless driver, after all.

Driver.

Vegeta knew, intellectually, that there wasn't much hope in that department. Not with the car as destroyed as it was, bonnet barely recognisable and windscreen scattered to the four winds. But he tried anyway, reaching the front in barely a moment and ripping the body of the car even more to retrieve the battered and crimson-soaked form.

Blood.

The victim couldn't have been killed on impact, then, he surmised, placing the woman, for it was indeed a woman, he noted dimly, on the tarmac. But there was nothing to respond to his magical ministrations. No spark of life, nothing. Her skull had been caved in, body disfigured, and his eyes were drawn to a nearly severed hand still clutching to an arm by its tendons.

A ring.

She had been married, then. She had been a wife. Barely recognisable as a woman, as a human, Vegeta's mind immediately went to his own spouse. Equally delicate. His slap-dash, risk-taking wife who was prone to speeding, when this woman had been the victim of another's folly.

And now that poor child would be raised motherless in a cruel world in which humans were both safe and doomed in equal measure, carrying out their existences not knowing of the fates they avoided, still subject to the dangers they induced on themselves.

Vegeta's hand shook as he lowered it down to his side, head bowed before the lifeless cadaver.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

Perhaps if he had been faster, if he had turned to her first before the child, who had not been as urgently injured. If he had put aside his instinctual reaction to a maimed young in favour of the ailing mother. Had she still been clinging to life while he was ministering to another?

"She's dead," he commented, head still bowed as the paramedics finally approached, far too late for this poor woman. This poor wife of someone about to have his world destroyed. This poor mother.

"There's still the truck driver," someone beseeched him softly, gesturing to a stricken man lying unconscious some distance away, reminding him that he still had work to do. It wasn't over yet, and he couldn't allow the loss of one to doom more through his inaction.

He turned away.

"I'm sorry."